ByOdimegwu Onwumere
Governor Chibuike Amaechi topically
said that his administration has achieved in building of roads in Rivers State.
Customarily, this means that the Rivers
State government said that it has put
its head in curbing the man-hours’ stalemating traffic state-of-affairs in Port Harcourt, the
capital of the state.
Traffic circumstances in the state
had several times compelled the governor to be an emergency traffic controller.
One of such incidents was along Chief G.U. Ake-Eliozu road. He even arrested
traffic offenders. It could be recalled that the discharged Managing Director
of Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, Mr. Chibuzor Ugwoha, when he was
in office was stopped on the road and was asked to reverse his car when he was
driving against the traffic and ran into the convoy of the governor. Ugwoha was
not only in that idea of riding against the tide, his rebellious against the
traffic order is how most of the powerful in the society who were supposed to
be role models to those who had looked up to them also do.
Traffic situations in the City of Port Harcourt can never
abate if the residents do not obey traffic orders. Though, who wears the cap
wears the blame. But there is no how Amaechi can oversee what is happening in
his kingdom at a go. It is the duty of the residents to assist in being orderly
to the orchestrated rules of the government. It is becoming a culture among
people in the state to disobey traffic rules and several other rules. One group
that this ugly attitude is fad with is the company executives. They foil
traffic rules with reckless abandon, not blinking to know the effect of their
behavior to other road users. They forgot that disobedience of traffic rules
(by anybody in the state no matter how highly place) is seen as a crime. There
is no provision in the laws of the state that permits anybody or group, whether
moving in singular or convoys or the escorts of policemen and soldiers, to
frustrate traffic rules.
It has been observed that policemen
and soldiers in their official vehicles hardly obey any form of decorum on the
roads in the state; hence they complement to worsen the traffic situation. How
could a citizen of Nigeria
who was supposed to obey the law now becomes the law breaker? Security agents
are the arbiters that recklessly and disobediently go against the laws traffic
wardens are fighting to maintain than any group or persons.
Officials of The Rivers State Road
Management Agency, TIMARIV, and volunteers who direct traffic in Port Harcourt and its
environs should be commended. TIMARIV may be losing focus why it was created as
residents have complained unremittingly of one intimidation or the other in the
hand of its workers. This agency should understand that law was supposed to
remain static, not principle. So, it is crucial that TIMARIV does not change
from the established laws to work on human principles. It is on the premise of
the laws that Amaechi, around June, ordered that motorists driving against the
traffic their car keys should be seized. Many drivers were victims unsuspecting
that Amaechi was on his way for the not-in-the-diary inspection tour of
projects. Traffic offenders were aghast when they saw him controlling the enormous
traffic-jam to ensure a free flow of traffic. His aides and security men were
not left out of the exercise. They helped to ensure a sane traffic movement.
There could be bad roads in Port Harcourt, but how
overwhelmed are the road users when they go contrary to traffic rules?
Dissidents on the roads of Port Harcourt have
always made the governor to appear numerous times on live radio programmes in Port Harcourt and
appealed that the residents should comprehend with the government on the
gridlock traffic situation that is continual in the city. Without exonerating
the government’s perceived flaws in the maintenance of roads in Rivers State,
one does not think that Amaechi is on the road every day. It is the residents
that cause the untold traffic-jam on daily basis.
Therefore, it is an appeal that the
government should put in place bad segments of uncompleted roads in Rivers State.
This will help the residents to understand the traffic congestion as something
not caused by bad roads and help subside the suffering of the people plying the
roads as residents are no longer entertained by the bad state of roads and the
attendant traffic jams they cause. The state government should do something
urgently if it was serious about attracting investors. With good roads and
investors trooping into the state, revenue that could be generated from them
might spur the State government not to have the approval of the state House of
Assembly to borrow N100 billion which was intended to help fund its infrastructure
projects. The bulk of the loan which was aimed at making down payments for
power distribution projects that will ensure uninterrupted power supply in Rivers State
by 2012 would have been gotten without the government sweating much in the
stock market.
Distribution of roads will never be
sufficient in Rivers
State, no matter what has
been perceived as “enough generation capacity” the state has. The state
government’s plan to issue a shelf registration for N250 billion at the capital
market would have been stalled if all the ministries in the state are
efficiently working and earnestly contributing to the wellbeing of the
Amaechi-led government of Rivers State. As was defined by experts, shelf
registration is a procedure that allows corporations or government (as in this
case) file one registration statement covering several issues over a period of
time.
Amaechi should worry the Ministry of
Works not to allow contractors that were given the contracts of re-constructing
the Rivers roads relax on their responsibilities. He has to always remind those
working with him of the joint Press Conference three commissioners in the
Ministries of Works, Information and Communications, and Culture and Tourism,
conducted. This was held on Tuesday 4 October 2011. Victor Giadom, the Works
Commissioner pleaded with the people of the state to be patient for the next 30
days. The plea was that when the rains will subside and dry season sets in
there will be a comprehensive construction of all the major roads initially
started but stopped at the peak of the rains in Rivers State.
Odimegwu Onwumere, Poet/Author, Media/Writing
Consultant and Motivator, is the Coordinator, Concerned Non-Indigenes In Rivers
State (CONIRIV); and Founder, Poet Against Child Abuse (PACA), Rivers State
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